Why is my bathroom fan not running?

Fancy having a go at fixing the silent bathroom fan? You might be making a big mistake. We explain why it’s time to call an expert to the rescue.

What do you do when your extractor stops? For all those years, there it was, quietly (well, usually) chugging away in the background, doing its job of extracting the warm, moist air from your bathroom and now – silence. You may not have even noticed that it stopped – but you’ll quickly notice the fact the condensation staying around on your bathroom mirror (and walls) for longer and, in the longer term, a possible build-up of mould on the walls and ceiling. So how do you fix it?

Diagnosing the problem

The humble bathroom extractor fan is a simple piece of kit and consists of an electrically powered motor which runs fan blades. The warm moist air is then extracted through ducting to the outside of the house (you’ll see a vent on the outside wall). Most extract fans are linked to the lights through a timer, allowing the fan to stay on for a set time after the lights have been turned off – for this they are wired into the lighting circuit.

So what can go wrong? Well, a lot. There are usually two or three areas of common failure. The motor itself might fail, which cannot in itself be fixed and therefore would need a like-for-like replacement. The blades inside the fan housing could begin to seize up – there’s a lot of moisture passing through the fan, and inevitably this is likely to affect resilience. There might also be a failure of the electrical wiring for various reasons.